Abusive interrogation tactics produce bad intel, and undermine the
values we hold dear. Why we must, as a nation, do better.

The debate over the treatment of enemy
prisoners, like so much of the increasingly overcharged partisan debate over
the war in Iraq and the global war
against terrorists, has occasioned many unserious and unfair charges about the
administration's intentions and motives. With all the many competing demands
for their attention, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have remained
admirably tenacious in their determination to prevent terrorists from
inflicting another atrocity on the American people, whom they are sworn to
protect. It is certainly fair to credit their administration's vigilance as a
substantial part of the reason that we have not experienced another terrorist
attack on American soil since September 11, 2001.

It is also quite fair to attribute the
administration's position-that U.S. interrogators be allowed latitude in their
treatment of enemy prisoners that might offend American values-to the
president's and vice president's appropriate concern for acquiring actionable
intelligence that could prevent attacks on our soldiers or our allies or on the
American people. And it is quite unfair to assume some nefarious purpose
informs their intentions. They bear the greatest responsibility for the
security of American lives and interests. I understand and respect their
motives just as I admire the seriousness and patriotism of their resolve. But I
do, respectfully, take issue with the position that the demands of this war
require us to accord a lower station to the moral imperatives that should govern
our conduct in war and peace when they come in conflict with the unyielding
inhumanity of our vicious enemy.

Obviously, to defeat our enemies we need
intelligence, but intelligence that is reliable. We should not torture or treat
inhumanely terrorists we have captured. The abuse of prisoners harms, not
helps, our war effort. In my experience, abuse of prisoners often produces bad
intelligence because under torture a person will say anything he thinks his
captors want to hear-whether it is true or false-if he believes it will relieve
his suffering. I was once physically coerced to provide my enemies with the
names of the members of my flight squadron, information that had little if any
value to my enemies as actionable intelligence. But I did not refuse, or repeat
my insistence that I was required under the Geneva Conventions to provide my
captors only with my name, rank and serial number. Instead, I gave them the
names of the Green Bay Packers' offensive line, knowing that providing them
false information was sufficient to suspend the abuse. It seems probable to me
that the terrorists we interrogate under less than humane standards of
treatment are also likely to resort to deceptive answers that are perhaps less
provably false than that which I once offered.

Our commitment to basic humanitarian
values affects-in part-the willingness of other nations to do the same.
Mistreatment of enemy prisoners endangers our own troops who might someday be
held captive. While some enemies, and Al Qaeda surely, will never be bound by
the principle of reciprocity, we should have concern for those Americans
captured by more traditional enemies, if not in this war then in the next.
Until about 1970, North Vietnam ignored its obligations not to mistreat the Americans
they held prisoner, claiming that we were engaged in an unlawful war against
them and thus not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions. But
when their abuses became widely known and incited unfavorable international
attention, they substantially decreased their mistreatment of us. Again, Al
Qaeda will never be influenced by international sensibilities or open to moral
suasion. If ever the term "sociopath" applied to anyone, it applies
to them. But I doubt they will be the last enemy America will fight, and we should not
undermine today our defense of international prohibitions against torture and
inhumane treatment of prisoners of war that we will need to rely on in the
future.

To prevail in this war we need more than
victories on the battlefield. This is a war of ideas, a struggle to advance
freedom in the face of terror in places where oppressive rule has bred the
malevolence that creates terrorists. Prisoner abuses exact a terrible toll on
us in this war of ideas. They inevitably become public, and when they do they
threaten our moral standing, and expose us to false but widely disseminated
charges that democracies are no more inherently idealistic and moral than other
regimes. This is an existential fight, to be sure. If they could, Islamic
extremists who resort to terror would destroy us utterly. But to defeat them we
must prevail in our defense of American political values as well. The
mistreatment of prisoners greatly injures that effort.

The mistreatment of prisoners harms us
more than our enemies. I don't think I'm naive about how terrible are the wages
of war, and how terrible are the things that must be done to wage it
successfully. It is an awful business, and no matter how noble the cause for
which it is fought, no matter how valiant their service, many veterans spend
much of their subsequent lives trying to forget not only what was done to them,
but some of what had to be done by them to prevail.

I don't mourn the loss of any terrorist's
life. Nor do I care if in the course of serving their ignoble cause they suffer
great harm. They have pledged their lives to the intentional destruction of
innocent lives, and they have earned their terrible punishment in this life and
the next. What I do mourn is what we lose when by official policy or official
neglect we allow, confuse or encourage our soldiers to forget that best sense
of ourselves, that which is our greatest strength-that we are different and
better than our enemies, that we fight for an idea, not a tribe, not a land, not
a king, not a twisted interpretation of an ancient religion, but for an idea
that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with inalienable
rights.

Now, in this war, our liberal notions are
put to the test. Americans of good will, all patriots, argue about what is
appropriate and necessary to combat this unconventional enemy. Those of us who
feel that in this war, as in past wars, Americans should not compromise our
values must answer those Americans who believe that a less rigorous application
of those values is regrettably necessary to prevail over a uniquely abhorrent
and dangerous enemy. Part of our disagreement is definitional. Some view more
coercive interrogation tactics as something short of torture but worry that
they might be subject to challenge under the "no cruel, inhumane or
degrading" standard. Others, including me, believe that both the
prohibition on torture and the cruel, inhumane and degrading standard must
remain intact. When we relax that standard, it is nearly unavoidable that some
objectionable practices will be allowed as something less than torture because
they do not risk life and limb or do not cause very serious physical pain.

For instance, there has been considerable
press attention to a tactic called "waterboarding," where a prisoner
is restrained and blindfolded while an interrogator pours water on his face and
into his mouth-causing the prisoner to believe he is being drowned. He isn't,
of course; there is no intention to injure him physically. But if you gave
people who have suffered abuse as prisoners a choice between a beating and a
mock execution, many, including me, would choose a beating. The effects of most
beatings heal. The memory of an execution will haunt someone for a very long
time and damage his or her psyche in ways that may never heal. In my view, to
make someone believe that you are killing him by drowning is no different than
holding a pistol to his head and firing a blank. I believe that it is torture,
very exquisite torture.

Those who argue the necessity of some
abuses raise an important dilemma as their most compelling rationale: the
ticking-time-bomb scenario. What do we do if we capture a terrorist who we have
sound reasons to believe possesses specific knowledge of an imminent terrorist
attack?

In such an urgent and rare instance, an
interrogator might well try extreme measures to extract information that could
save lives. Should he do so, and thereby save an American city or prevent
another 9/11, authorities and the public would surely take this into account
when judging his actions and recognize the extremely dire situation which he
confronted. But I don't believe this scenario requires us to write into law an
exception to our treaty and moral obligations that would permit cruel, inhumane
and degrading treatment. To carve out legal exemptions to this basic principle
of human rights risks opening the door to abuse as a matter of course, rather
than a standard violated truly in extremis. It is far better to embrace a
standard that might be violated in extraordinary circumstances than to lower
our standards to accommodate a remote contingency, confusing personnel in the
field and sending precisely the wrong message abroad about America's purposes
and practices.

The state of Israel, no stranger to
terrorist attacks, has faced this dilemma, and in 1999 the Israeli Supreme
Court declared cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment illegal. "A
democratic, freedom-loving society," the court wrote, "does not
accept that investigators use any means for the purpose of uncovering truth.
The rules pertaining to investigators are important to a democratic state. They
reflect its character."

I've been asked often where did the brave
men I was privileged to serve with in North Vietnam draw the strength to resist
to the best of their abilities the cruelties inflicted on them by our enemies.
They drew strength from their faith in each other, from their faith in God and
from their faith in our country. Our enemies didn't adhere to the Geneva Conventions.
Many of my comrades were subjected to very cruel, very inhumane and degrading
treatment, a few of them unto death. But every one of us-every single one of
us-knew and took great strength from the belief that we were different from our
enemies, that we were better than them, that we, if the roles were reversed,
would not disgrace ourselves by committing or approving such mistreatment of
them. That faith was indispensable not only to our survival, but to our
attempts to return home with honor. For without our honor, our homecoming would
have had little value to us.

The enemies we fight today hold our
liberal values in contempt, as they hold in contempt the international
conventions that enshrine them. I know that. But we are better than them, and we
are stronger for our faith. And we will prevail. It is indispensable to our
success in this war that those we ask to fight it know that in the discharge of
their dangerous responsibilities to their country they are never expected to
forget that they are Americans, and the valiant defenders of a sacred idea of
how nations should govern their own affairs and their relations with
others-even our enemies.

Those who return to us and those who give
their lives for us are entitled to that honor. And those of us who have given
them this onerous duty are obliged by our history, and the many terrible
sacrifices that have been made in our defense, to make clear to them that they
need not risk their or their country's honor to prevail; that they are
always-through the violence, chaos and heartache of war, through deprivation
and cruelty and loss-they are always, always, Americans, and different, better
and stronger than those who would destroy us.